First published in the Baptist Times 24 June 2011
Gardening now feels like a secret vice, since I asked a lady at church if she enjoyed it and she replied, 'I might, if I didn't feel I should use the time for more important things.'
I was doing a bit of speed-gardening when I realised I had left my phone indoors. A couple of people were having a crisis and phoning periodically with updates and requests for prayer or company, so I had been keeping it with me. But, flinging out clumps of forget-me-nots, I forgot, and now I was tempted to leave it out of earshot. How selfish was that?
Then it occurred to me that what I was currently engaged in involved an apparent ruthlessness, restricting the territory occupied by a few plant species in order to create space for new growth. And being there for others during every stage of every crisis, filling every gap, could be like letting forget-me-nots fill every space in the garden.
The plants being weeded out were not weeds but welcome and colourful flowers that filled gaps, covered bare soil and made the garden look flourishing. But they weren't leaving space for any emerging tender perennials.
One of my previous churches had as its organist a celebrated musician who was in constant demand for recitals, weddings and funerals. People came for miles to hear. The church prided itself on such a treasure.
Then a small group of teenagers, inspired by a talk on serving God by serving their local church, got together to practise on guitars and violin and keyboard and offered to play at a youth service.
They started shakily but gained confidence and harmony, and the young people - and many older ones - responded enthusiastically. Some asked if they'd play at the evening services which mainly young people attended.
The church leaders were delighted and gave them every encouragement. Then somebody worried: would the organist be offended if she was no longer required to play at every opportunity? But no, she responded graciously. She would welcome the break: let the young folk have a chance.
So the little group turned up and practised and prayed. Just before the service started, the organist arrived. She asked what songs they were playing, took a copy of the music, and legged it up to the organ loft, from where she proceeded to play every song along with them, over them, longer and louder than them. When the youth leader suggested she stopped, she erupted in rage and threatened to leave the church, until pacified. She continued to play at every subsequent service. The youth group wilted and faded away from church.
It's a hard decision to thin out the groundcover, while the plants themselves are still flourishing, colourful and securely rooted in their familiar soil. Many churches depend on the goodwill and giftedness of a treasured few people who are a reliable standby. Nobody wants them uprooted. Generously, they fill every gap in the schedule. Often they set seed and train up clones of themselves.
It's only when new ideas or new people break through the compacted soil, in pursuit of light and growth, that the groundcover making the garden look so successful may, when thinned out or removed, expose unsuspected bindweed or ravenous snails which can make short work of new shoots.
'Standing in the gap' - supplying needs that others can't or don't fill - is Christian service. Refusing to stand back and leave gaps for others to grow into, isn't.
At the start of every new season, though faced with acres of valid demands and 'more important things,' the church's guardians and gardeners need to get their wellies on and make time for the backbreaking, heartbreaking, ruthless and mucky work of creating space for the unimpressive new shoots of immature future plants.
If they don't, then the groundcover will, for a while, continue to fill its role - but may also harbour hazards that threaten the life of a church: jealousy, malice and exclusive possessiveness.
